Miracle baby's life after tragedy
Ripped from slain ma’s womb, tot a bundle of joy
Meet the Miracle Baby of The Bronx.
Jenasis Bradley looks like any other bubbly, babbling toddler: chubby cheeks, tiny fingers, big eyes and bright smiles.
The beaming child’s innocence betrays no hint of her nightmare beginning, when her 22-year-old mom Angelikque Sutton, just weeks away from giving birth, was murdered by a deranged pal — who then carved the baby out of the dead woman’s body, authorities said.
“It’s my baby!” accused killer Ashleigh Wade allegedly insisted to cops at the blood-soaked Wakefield scene on Nov. 20, 2015. Somehow, Jenasis survived. Now her father, Patrick Bradley, is lovingly teaching her to “box,” while keeping her late mother alive for their child with photos.
“Guard your face,” he tells the toddler, laughing as she balls her small fists up in front of her eyes in an Instagram video.
In a January Facebook message, Bradley posted dual images of a playful Sutton sticking out her tongue next to a picture of her daughter mimicking the funny face.
“I showed my daughter this pic of her mom and she started making this face,” he wrote. “Moments like this be hard to handle.”
The grief doesn’t seem to touch Jenasis, her paternal grandmother, Joanna Bradley, recently told The Post.
“She’s doing fine,” the grandmother said.
More difficult moments are surely ahead, especially for Sutton’s distraught parents, who come Monday will have to relive their daughter’s brutal death as the trial of her alleged murderer begins.
The pain is twofold for the Suttons, who have also endured losing precious time with their daughter’s only child. A source claims the couple have been kept from bonding with their granddaughter, calling the situation “chaotic.”
Joanna Bradley denied any divisions with the Suttons.
“That’s not true,” she insisted when asked if the Suttons were kept from Jenasis. The Suttons declined to comment.
The grieving parents are expected to be in the courtroom when Wade’s trial on murder and kidnapping charges unfolds in the Bronx Hall of Justice.
They sat stoically last week through days of jury selection and hearings, as Justice Margaret Clancy warned prospective jurors about the nature of the case.
“The testimony and the pictures will at times be extremely graphic,” Clancy said.
Potential jurors gasped as the accusations were read in court. A pale, be- spectacled Wade, 23, who has pleaded not guilty, quietly wept as the allegations were repeated.
When Assistant District Attorney Meredith Holtzman asked one prospective juror what his first reaction was to the case particulars, he replied simply, “Holy s--t.”
Former elementary-school classmates, Sutton and Wade had lost touch over the years but reconnected via Facebook while Sutton was pregnant with Jenasis.
Wade had announced on social media and told everyone in her life she was also pregnant and due that November, but she wasn’t, authorities said.
Prosecutors intend to prove Wade, who had infant clothes neatly stacked in her Monticello Avenue home ready and waiting, killed Sutton to
take her baby.
The killer avoided stabbing Sutton in the abdomen during the murder, a sign of the planned kidnapping, the Bronx District Attorney’s Office said.
But Wade, who endured a lifetime of depression, childhood abuse and domestic violence even in the months leading up to Sutton’s murder, had no getaway plan, said defense attorney Amy Attias, who said last week she does not intend to pursue an insanity defense.
“If the point of the killing was to get to the baby, what was the end game? What was the escape plan?” Attias said during a Wednesday hearing about whether certain medical and psychiatric records should be pro- vided to jurors.
“911 was called multiple times, and she waited outside,” Attias said. “All of this goes to a lack of pre-planning.”
Wade claimed to cops the victim had attacked her, and that she stabbed Sutton in self-defense.
She “rescued” Jenasis, Wade told officers.
“Holding her felt right and I believed that that little girl was mine,” she said, according to court papers.
Attias said she hopes to show that Wade became so temporarily overwhelmed by her emotions as she and Sutton spoke, she lost control. It’s called the “extreme emotional disturbance” defense.
The pressure on Wade increased the day of the murder as the women discussed their childhood, with Sutton claiming their friends had believed Wade was arrogant, Attias said.
Faced with a friend who had everything she didn’t — a pregnancy,y, a supportivep family — Wade snappedsnapped, Attias argued.
“She needed to make that stop,” said Attias oof the conversation between the wwomen. Wade was found fit to stand trial in a hhearing last year. If AttAttias’ defense succeeds,ceeds, the charges could bbe reduced to manslaughter, and Wade could dodge a life sentence.
Oblivious to the legal battle surrounding her, Jenasis continues to bbring a measure of lilightht and happiness to those who suffered the darkest of tragedies.
In one photo, her toothy grin glows as she swings at a playground.
“My babygirl,” Patrick Bradley wrote.
Holding her felt right, and I believed that that little girl was mine. — Ashleigh Wade to police after she was found holding the slain mom’s newborn, Jenasis Bradley, according to court papers